Composing the sky

Going down Glen hill, I was thinking about composing the sky. It seems like a background element, and most of the time it is, but its shape and consistency  plays an important role in any landscape scene. Here, the sky occupies about half the painting, giving a sense of scale to the highway overpass and steep hillside. 

Highway hillside, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

Similar spot, looking up at Glen hill, and the sky is only added to complete the overall effect. In this case the triangular wedge of the road is central to the composition. The road was done with a pale orange wash, then once dry, a purplish grey finishing wash. I let the washes dry completely before packing the painting into my bike bag to avoid smudging. 

Looking up Glen hill, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

At the bottom of the hill looking under the highway, that's Courcelle street, I saw some graffiti illuminated by a shaft of light. This was a very technical painting to do, and I was careful to use clean water and an unused paintbrush to apply the central magenta colour-fill on the graffiti. And the sky, you see a small wedge of it towards the upper right, its just there to give a sense of atmosphere. 

Light shaft graffiti watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

Finally for my exploration of sky compositions, this one has a triangular wedge of sky, adorned with a flock of pigeons flying away. Below, a bunch of electrical pole devices are sitting in an area, this is some kind of city works building. 

Pigeons over city works, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

And one last scene of a dépanneur in Hochelaga, it has a red and green 7UP sign which is a rarity, normally its a coke or sometimes Pepsi. Like many such shops, its fully integrated with a residential building. A local was walking down the sidewalk, scraping stickers off of posts... I think he was a good citizen removing graffiti to keep the streets looking nice. In fact, a lot of graffiti looked to be removed and buffed over, so Hochelage is putting effort into keeping the neighborhood looking nice. 

Dépanneur Clair Hochelage, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026 

Zen factor trucks and traffic

Putting together purple-grey and a variety of olive-greens with neutral yellow created an autumn glow in this painting of the Zen factory. Its an old abandoned warehouse that has since been covered in graffiti and severely degraded. The city plans to develop the lot. That's called 'infill' where lands is turned into dense buildings. 

Zen factory autumn colours, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

This location is right next to route 10, and you see an on ramp here, with trucks parked in the foreground. I liked the reflective truck, its neat to paint such forms. I started with a three-tone wash, let dry, then painted it over with texturing and detail. Wearing glasses helped. 

Trucks trucks trucks, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

I've used this composition before, placing a prominent tree at the center of the painting, then surrounding it with asymmetrical features. On the right is the Zen factory, on the left are the highway and traffic elements. The tree was done with successive layers and texturing, with plenty of yellow ochre (PY43), and a daub of bismuth vanadate yellow at the top (PY184). 

Prominent tree traffic, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

 

Digital batch 5

Last batch of digital images, there are not even any left on my phone. Starting with a black background, I applied juicy neon brush strokes, followed by neon daubs. Most of the colours are realistic in that once could paint them, except for the bright lime green, its only possible with a digital app. 

Pop art pop, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Surrealistic, almost fractal-like, this one evokes a dream like state. Complex fills, blends, and pattern applications adorn the scene. Finishing with a few bold black rhythm lines on the right side completed the effect. I felt that something had to cut through all the grey and purple tones. 

Celestial talon, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

My favorite trick, start with dark background then over-paint with thin neon lines. In this case, I layered two designs in a clever fashion. My initials are hidden bottom center in yellow.  

A maze on maze, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Surprisingly dramatic, this one evokes the inside of a cellular structure, or pollinating flower bud. Pollen attracts bees, and we are studying the anti-cancer effects of bee venom in my research lab now. For the drawing, green neon highlights made the reds pop. 

Bee light, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Evoking forest fires, which were fairly minimal this year, this drawing used a series of spray paint and pattern stamps, although the birds were freehand. Or freefinger I suppose. These are all done with the index finger. 

Summer glow, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000 

Cilei and I took the train recently, which is when I made quite a few of these sketches. As you would know it, we saw the train gremlin again, at least, I saw it. Or did I?

Train gremlin reprise, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000  

Digital batch 4

This intense image recalls the 'Spirograph' toy where you could make concentric shaped within ovals and circles. I tried to emulate the sensation on the smart phone, going through a variety of yellow, red and pink hues. Hypnotic. 

Flamingo graph, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Resembling histones, the structure that winds up DNA, this drawing was complete in a matter of seconds, with some stamp and smudge to add texture. 

His tones, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Another childhood inspiration, the Diorama, which is a small scene set up within a box, usually a shoe box. It took a long time this one, in order to get the lighting and perspective looking correct. The star-field within a box idea was something I worked out in Sun Earth Moon. 

Diorama, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Is there a signature in there somewhere? If you did ask AI to make such a drawing it would probably look like this. If it hasn't happened already, AI will scrape my blog and let other people make such art. So my role in life is making AI!?

Signature piece, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Actually I looked up a fact about T cells the other day, and AI told me about my own paper that was published. Thanks! At any rate, the webs in this painting are all applied in real life, at least, digitally. One more batch to go. 

Initial webs, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000 

Digital batch 3

Continuing with the latest 'digital dump',  for lack of a better term, here are more of the August and September digital images. I have some new paintings from today too, might post later. In the digital sketch, I super-imposed a tree using negative space. 

Space saver tree, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000 

Working in the bright pastel range, with cyan, magenta and variations of yellow-orange, I created this imaginary flower bulb. The yellow brush and green grassy effects are stamp tools.  

Sky reach, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Going for more of an earthy palette, this effort used sparkle and spray effects to liven up a pretty flat composition. Finishing with a few high-definition finger strokes in the upper left completed the scene. 

Shine times, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Starting with a dark yellow to pale blue fade, I over-painted textural variations and then applied splatter stamps in various shapes and sizes. 

Spilt blue paint, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

The soft chalky brush tool is one of my favorites, it creates a pleasing crumble-effect. The composition was so neat I didn't know where to sign, eventually putting subtle initials on the bottom right. 

Chalk lines, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Digital batch 2

These sketches are all done on a smartphone app called Sketchbook which has a deep selection of drawing tools. No AI needed! Just creativity. At least it does not use up paper like watercolour does. 

 

Primary swirls, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Applying dark versions of the rainbow, then drawing over with the neon brush gave an interesting variety of effects. Spray paint spatter tool gave it a celestial feel. 

See me now, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Like a popsicle, or cotton candy, who knows? Using a similar technique as the last one, but with a bright background and searing yellow neon.

Question creamcicle, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

Starting with a pretty bland composition, I wasn't sure what to do with it, then used smear tool to make an organic looking frame. With real paint you have to time things out as the paint dries, but these sketches can be produced with any effect in any order really. 

Confetti framework, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000

And something that could never be painted, and that's the fun part, this indulgent neon doodle on top of a dark blue background. I adjusted the neon settings to have a greater glow effect. 

Neon ohs, 2026 digital, Sketchbook, 800 x 1000 

Digital batch 1

I made a bunch of new digital images over August and September, so here is the first batch. Above, its a duck-like abstraction set against a surrealistic background. Light sparkles create a sense of mystery. 

Periscope fowl, Digital, Sketchbook 800 x1000

A textural journey, I layered several patterns and contrasting colours to create this image. The black crystal shapes pop against a soft pastel background. 

Crystal night pastel, Digital, Sketchbook 800 x1000

A bland design was made lively with static-swirls and some highlights. Sometimes I try a lot of ideas on a composition before finding the right tool. The swirls are neon-stamp brush drawn in concentric circles. 

Static swirl clamp, Digital, Sketchbook 800 x1000

Reminiscent of a dust mite, or one of those small red insects that crawls on rocks, this image was created in black and white. Applying a red spatter gave a lady-bug like effect. I popped in some morsels of food at the top to give our bug something to eat. 

Mesh bug, Digital, Sketchbook 800 x1000

There were more layers than meets the eye here. Starting with pale swirls I kept overlapping more swirls with greater colour intensity. In digital you can completely 'draw-over' previous layers, although some tools allow for transparency. Its one of the things you cant really do with conventional paint. 

Swirls on swirls, Digital, Sketchbook 800 x1000